While not as solid or impressive as Most Wanted, Carbon is still a fun and exciting game well worth checking out.

User Rating: 8 | Need for Speed Carbon X360
If there’s one game franchise you can expect to see released with each year, it’s Need for Speed. Electronic Arts isn’t exactly a company that’s willing to let one of their biggest series go on without hitting store shelves at least once a year, and this year is no different. Last year’s Most Wanted could be called something like a long lost brother since it added what made the games released prior to Underground great: the cops. Not only was Most Wanted looked at as one of the single greatest Need for Speed games, but also a solid racing game in its own right. Now Need for Speed is back with Carbon, and EA has decided to bring the racing back to the nighttime scene as well as add a few new features to the mix, but most of them feel either unnecessary or just don’t work out that well.

The game’s setting takes place in Palmont City, shortly after the end of Most Wanted, which had you narrowly avoiding arrest from Sergeant Cross in the city of Rockport. Carbon’s story kicks off with you being chased down by Cross, who’s now a bounty hunter as he’s basically been kicked out of the Rockport police force. You then-like in most Need for Speed games-trash your ride, get confronted by Cross but are then saved at the last minute by Darius, who was actually a friend of yours at one point. You also get introduced to the next Need for Speed babe: Nikki played by Emmanuelle Vaugier from Saw 2, who apparently was your girl prior to the start of Most Wanted. Nikki isn’t exactly enthusiastic about your return to Palmont, but Darius sees potential in you and decided to give you the chance to retake control of the city, since you at one point ruled the city of Palmont. From there on, you’ll need to work your way through race after race until you reach the top again.

The story actually grabs your attention quite well at first and there’s much that it does to maintain your interest for the majority of the game. There are many flashback FMV’s in Carbon, and the characters in the game are actually much more tolerable than the more obnoxious faces from Most Wanted. However, by the time you come close to completing the game, the story starts to lose its grip and might actually leave many let down by how it wasn’t quite tapped into near the end as opposed to the strong start to the game’s story. On the other hand, good stories in racing games are exceedingly rare and basically nonexistent, so it’s at least nice to see that EA put some time and effort into making some sort of story.

The city of Palmont is rendered fairly well by the game’s graphics engine, but certain locations look like rehashed areas from previous Need for Speed games, particularly Underground 2. The environments deliver fairly well on the amount of detail put into the game, but the buildings do look a tad bit rough and grainy at times. Part of this is due to the game’s use of motion blur and lighting effects, which are effectively used to create a great sense of speed, but seem to get in the way of some sharp-looking surroundings. But what really makes Carbon look great are the car models and animations. The use of reflections and lighting on the cars is used so effectively the cars glimmer with so much detail that the game really sells the illusion that the cars look real. So while Carbon might not be crisp around every piece of landscape, the sense of speed, lighting effects and car animations really add a great visual flair to the game.

So, how exactly do I retake control of the city you ask? Well, how Carbon sets up the system for retaking control of your lost ground is that you’ll have four main districts to control, each of which are divided by multiple territories. There are about ten territories per district and about two to three racing events in each territory. In order to take control of a territory, you’ll either need to win all or a majority of the racing events in that territory. Once you’ve taken over each territory in a district, you’ll have the chance to take on that district’s leader, which take place in the form of the game’s boss fights. How these battles work are that you’ll race against a boss in a standard race, and if you win then you’ll challenge them in the Canyon Duels.

The Canyon Duels are a two-part racing event, the first has you following the district leader trying to acquire as many points as possible; the closer you are the faster you accumulate points. The second part has the leader following you and your objective to stay as far away from them as they start draining the points you earned in the first run. If your opponent takes all your points or you fall off the canyon through the weak railing along the hairpin turns in the canyon you lose the match. There are also ways in which you or the boss can automatically win the race. If either racer passes or pulls away from the other racer for ten seconds, then that racer automatically wins both parts of the Canyon Duel. The Canyon Duels are a neat idea and add a bit more tension to the game, but the boss battles frustrate more than they do exciting, which does make the Canyon Duels less entertaining.

There are several racing modes in Carbon, some that are as old as the racing genre itself, some that make a return from Most Wanted as well as a couple new modes. You’ve got your typical Sprint, Circuit and Checkpoint racing modes as well as the Speedtrap mode from Most Wanted in which you win by crossing checkpoints at the highest speed possible. Other racing modes that appear in Carbon include the return of Drifting, which works out good enough, but requires an acquired taste to really appreciate since mastering drifting on the game’s courses isn’t necessarily a simple task per say. Finally, there’s the occasional racing mode known as Race Wars, which are basically races that take place after a district leader has been defeated and in which more than twelve racers show up for a bit of extra money. Race Wars is mostly used to show how many racing bots the game can handle on-screen at once, but other than that they’re barely even a note-worthy addition and seem more like another way to hinder your progress from one district to the next.

The racing in Carbon is solid enough and shows that the series can still be fun while sticking to basic gameplay mechanics for racing. The interface and options you have available to you while racing and roaming around the city-if that’s your style-is really unchanged from Most Wanted. Then again, there wasn’t much technically wrong with Most Wanted’s gameplay, so Carbon really goes for an “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach, and for the most part it works well. About the only real thing that makes the racing in Carbon stand out from Most Wanted is that the racing is actually a bit more fun and a lot more addicting as a whole. It’s quite possible to sit down and play this game for a good six or more hours without stopping, it’s really one of those games that tosses so much excitement and fun at you that you just don’t want to stop. While the racing is more addicting than most games, it’s still a pretty average game as far as how it plays and handles when it comes down to the racing.

But don’t think that you’ll be doing these racing events all alone, because for most of them you’ll be accompanied by a Wingman from your Crew. You’ll start the game with only one Crew member, but as you progress, you’ll be allowed to hire more members to add to your crew. You can have a total of three Crew members but can only take one Wingman with you to a race. There are five types of Crew members: Blockers, Drafters and Scouts, who race with you in the races and then there’s Fixers and Fabricators, who work outside of the races. Each Crew member has two attributes, so you’ll have one Crew member that might be a Fixer and the Drafter or one that’s a Blocker and Fixer. The use of your Wingmen in races is temporary, in which you build up time for them by racing until you can activate and deactivate them at your free will, except for Scouts who serve their function throughout the whole race.

Blockers basically take out other racers for you, but only one at a time. Drafters get in front of you and after you follow their path and deactivate them, you’ll slingshot ahead. The only problem with Drafters is that there aren’t many straight paths, so the amount of times you’ll use them is limited. Scouts, who do their job throughout the whole race find shortcuts for you and try to point you in the right direction to those areas. Although the idea of Crew members sounds cool on paper, the way they’re executed is less than stellar. None of the Wingmen ever seem to have any real use in a race and actually tend to get in your way and accidentally ram you from time to time. It’s a nice idea that could’ve been tapped into, but there really isn’t any need for Wingmen to return in future Need for Speed titles.

The only exception to this would be in the Fabricators. Fabricators allow you to use the game’s new Autosculpt feature, which is the new real touch to the customization this time around. What Autosculpt allows you to do is use select parts rather than Aftermarket merchandise and alter them the way you want. How you adjust the settings for the parts is divided by Zones, which, depending on the part of your car can reach as high as nine zones. While Autosculpt isn’t a required feature in the game, it does help add more options and variety to the customization, it’s just a shame that there are only about five selections for each Autosculpt part. The customization in Carbon itself is far more extensive than the limited amount of options in Most Wanted, but it still seems like more parts could’ve been added to the mix. As for Fixers, they only help you with your rep with the police if you find the pressure of dealing with the 5-0 too much, so they’re purpose is actually quite useless.

Speaking of the cops, they make a return in Carbon, although they barely serve any purpose in the game. Unlike Most Wanted in which the game encouraged you to take part in police chases and rewarded you for taking part in chases by making you progress, the cops are just there because they’re there. You don’t get any real pay-off for getting chased by cops other than the adrenaline and rush from taking part in cop chases. In other words, cops are just there to hinder your progress and other than being used for the occasional Reward Card remuneration-which are rewards for taking on certain difficult tasks-they don’t make much of an impact on the game’s core racing and gameplay. And the sad reality of the matter is that the cop chases are actually less exciting than Most Wanted since Palmont just doesn’t seem like it was constructed with cop chases in mind and you’ll actually find yourself avoiding the police rather than challenging them for entertainment.

In regard to the game’s music and audio, Carbon is a good mix, like just about all of its predecessors. The soundtrack is composed of a variety of rap/hip-hop, rock and electronica/techno songs, and it’s actually one of the better, more balanced EA Trax yet. The audio and sound effects are similar to those found in Most Wanted, but some have been tweaked and altered to make the sound of engines, tires screeching, and crash noises far more convincing. While the sound effects and music in Carbon is very good for the most part, the voice-overs and dialogue are where this aspect of the game goes downhill. Throughout the races, you’ll hear your crew members keep ranting on about things relating to the race, and it gets rather annoying after a while. The voice-overs all sound very similar and don’t sound that great in their own right, not to mention some dumb and corny jokes that they toss in randomly for the heck of it. And for some odd reason, the game will have short clips of district leaders pop up on the side of screen when you racing them and they’ll typically make a dumb, insufferable laugh whenever you screw up, which is totally preposterous to say the least. Aside from that annoying issue, Carbon sounds like a good, solid game and gets most of what makes a game sound good right.

Carbon's Career mode is of a fairly decent length and should take most people about twelve hours to beat if they strictly focus on beating the game. If you’re one of those that aims for getting through every single race, it should take you anywhere from fifteen to eighteen hours to take depending on your skill level. Carbon isn’t the most challenging game out there, but the boss fights and Racer Wars do take some time to get past considering they tend to be quite tough. That said, between the number of racing events in the game and the typical amount of difficulty in the game, Carbon is rather short compared to many other racing games. But the game still has a bit more enticement to keep you coming back such as the Challenge Series and the recompenses for completing Reward Cards, which add a good amount of challenge and replay value to the game.

Need for Speed Carbon isn’t a big step forward for the series and it may not be quite as balanced or impressive as Most Wanted, but it’s still a decent, well-rounded game. While the game shares little in-common with its predecessor, which is debatably the best Need for Speed game since Hot Pursuit 2, Carbon still manages to hit the nail where it counts: entertainment. With a nice amount of variety to the customization, fun and addicting racing, along with sharp animations and great music and audio, Carbon is a game that most any Need for Speed fan should ultimately be pleased with.